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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28918791">Aviārium</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/obirain/pseuds/obirain'>obirain</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>1use of the word ass, Angst and Fluff, But mostly fluff, Fluff, Kissing, Light Angst, Other, gender neutral reader, much hugging, yes i simp for luke skywalker in the year of our lord 2021</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 12:27:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,461</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28918791</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/obirain/pseuds/obirain</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Both born on Tatooine, you and Luke had become fast friends in the Rebellion. Now, after the destruction of the second Death Star and the death of the Emperor, things are different between you—although somehow, much the same.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Luke Skywalker/Gender-Neutral Reader, Luke Skywalker/Reader, Luke Skywalker/You</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Aviārium</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Request from Tumblr: "could i pls request something fluffy with numbers 14, 16, and 18 [leaping hug, celebratory hug, lifting-off-the-ground hug]? like celebrating after a mission sksksk. it can be with either luke or obi-wan :)"</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>On Tatooine, you used to look up to the sky. During the day the suns ambled overhead and sank like water droplets beneath the heat-glassy horizon. The bonegnawers set out to hunt at twilight. They glided and darted with such grace, such deadly speed in the dying light with their scarlet feathers like comet tails. They weren’t always successful, you knew. <em>But how </em>can<em> they fail, they who fly more dynamic than blaster bolts?</em> They knew their home; they knew their targets. They knew how to survive and survive with fearsome, firework beauty. They knew their place; they knew how to fly. </p>
<p><em>And so would you,</em> you told yourself. </p>
<p>You had to. The Rebellion needed pilots, bodies, hands, and cannon fodder—an environment just as hostile as the desert that had raised you. It’s not all bad. It won’t <em>be</em> all bad. You’ll learn, you’ll learn to fly in time.</p>
<p>And all the better when another pilot joined your ranks.</p>
<p>Skywalker. The Lars’s boy. You’d heard of him. He’d heard of you, and nothing more. But he knew the Jundland Wastes; he knew Tatoo I and II; he knew the birds of prey. He knew what it was to look up to the sky and dream of more. <em>And he was a damn good pilot.</em></p>
<p>And he’d blown up the Death Star! A local boy, a nobody, and a somebody fresh off Tatooine just like yourself—a hero of the Rebellion! You <em>laughed</em> when you heard the news through your comms. Luke Skywalker: hero, farmer. But it was a laugh of joy and pure relief that you shrieked alone to yourself in your cockpit, the kind that lit the match within when you saw him back on Yavin. His helmet was off; his smile flashed for all to see. At the sound of his laughter—wild and unrestrained just like yours had been—your single thread of self-control snapped.</p>
<p>“Skywalker!”</p>
<p>His grin widened; he began to make his way through the crowd. But he had no time—not even to shout your name in return—before you’d launched yourself as far as you could in the overflow of bodies, flinging your arms around his neck. He stumbled backward and you with him; you’d both have hit the ground if it weren’t for a friend or two nearby. <em>Easy, easy! </em>they laughed. But their voices only blended with the chaos all around and you simply didn’t have the <em>space</em> in your heart to care.</p>
<p>“Hey! <em>Hey!” </em></p>
<p>“You did it! It’s done, it’s done, <em>it’s done!”</em> </p>
<p>“Well, I can’t take <em>all</em> the credit.” </p>
<p>“I wasn’t <em>giving</em> you all the credit, Hot Shot.” </p>
<p>You laughed again and slapped his shoulder. He was blushing and his eyes were wide, bluer than the sky through which you’d landed, and his smile—<em>that smile.</em> So close to you, so welcoming, bright as the two suns with gravity enough to hold the whole Tatoo System together. So familiar. So <em>inviting.</em></p>
<p><em>You can’t,</em> you screamed at yourself. <em>Not. Here, </em>here where the air was heavy with the sweat and excitement of four dozen victors. </p>
<p>You were still trying to decide when someone declared a round of drinks and Luke was hauled off and you were left; left in the greater throng and somehow more alone than in your four-foot cockpit. </p>
<p>But that was then, before the change. Before he began to disappear. </p>
<p>All was well on Hoth—normal, at least. And then he left. It was just a few weeks at first. Nothing too long. And then he was back, and he’d gone quiet.</p>
<p>You learned since a little of what had happened to him. Why suddenly he was almost always gone and the times he was here he didn’t fly with the squadrons. Why he was kind as ever, but had a faraway look in his eyes.</p>
<p><em>Let it die,</em> your mind whispered to itself. Let the suns set<em>.</em> </p>
<p>But they didn’t. Not when even when the light in his eyes had darkened in the autumn of the war and the twilight of the soul.</p>
<p><em>And now he’s here again, speaking with the Admiral. Smiling with tired eyes.</em> Fresh off Endor, the last off the transport. No one surrounds him today; they had their celebration when they first set foot on the ship. No, it’s quiet here—ghostly quiet for a Rebellion turned Republic and the underdogs triumphant. And when the Admiral leaves, Luke stands alone. And something in you breaks.</p>
<p>“Hey Skywalker!”</p>
<p>Luke turns around without a start, as if you’d politely asked him to pass the salt from across the dinner table. Your hands are clammy. <em>What if he doesn’t even acknowledge you?</em> And—worse—<em>what if he </em>does?A nod of his head, a wave of his hand, and a relapse into his monkish silence.</p>
<p>But even from afar, you can see a new match being lit. A new light in his eyes—and for a moment, for the first time, you can see beyond the black clothes and thousand-yard stare. For a moment, the Lars’s boy is here again. <em>And he’s saying your name. </em>Calling<em> your name. </em></p>
<p>And you run. Your footsteps clang against the metal floor; everything is too loud and too bright and your heart beats too fast and your limbs move too slow. <em>It’s too soon. It’s too much. He’s not ready. We’ll fall.</em></p>
<p>But he catches you seamlessly, like you’ve always been connected, always been physically a part of the other; he whirls you around several feet in the air—<em>he’s stronger than you thought—</em>spinning and spinning with him in the center: you don’t fall and you won’t; you <em>fly</em> in his arms, fly beyond this banal warship and its blinding lights to the world of gentle desert twilight you’ve loved so well because it’s <em>here,</em> before you, below you, carrying you through like wind beneath your wings; <em>it’s him.</em> And when he finally sets you down you collapse into his chest.</p>
<p>“Hey there, stranger.”</p>
<p><em>You had something to say. Didn’t you? You have to.</em> But nothing comes to you. You only cling to him for support with your arms around his neck. He smells like sweat and leather and something burnt and you couldn’t care less, not when he holds you so tightly and his arms are so warm. You shake your head. </p>
<p>“It’s over, isn’t it?” Your voice is hoarse. “It’s over. It’s done. For real.”</p>
<p>“Over and done,” Luke affirms. His fingers dig into your waist—when did you begin to tremble? You feel his lips against the crown of your head and shake with what feels like a sob and feels like a laugh. “Hey, it’s okay. Okay.”</p>
<p>You force yourself away from the safety of his neck, run your hands down the length of his shoulders and up to curl in his hair. It’s soft around your fingers. He smiles at you—and it’s odd, you think, the gentler, subdued curve of his lips and the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, how he seems so far ahead yet so <em>behind. </em>Those blue eyes, bluer than the sprawling Tatooinian sky flooded with two-fold light. So much the same as so many years ago. </p>
<p><em>Not ahead and not behind. Here. Now. </em>And his face is already swimming in your wettening eyes.</p>
<p>“Luke...”</p>
<p>“Yes?” </p>
<p>“... I want to kiss you. But not—not if you don’t—”</p>
<p>He’s on you in an instant. Your arms again wrap their way around his neck; he pulls you closer until not even a hair’s breadth separates you. The <em>feel </em>of him, the smell, the <em>taste, </em>the warmth that floods your insides as your mouth moves against his—it’s overwhelming. Overwhelmingly safe. Overwhelmingly home.</p>
<p>When he feels the tears against your cheeks and then his own, he pauses and pulls away just far enough to look you in the eyes.</p>
<p>“Hey, hey,” he murmurs, smoothing back your hair. “It’s done.”</p>
<p>You bunch your fists in his shirt; you’ll surely leave wrinkles. You can’t really find it in you to care.</p>
<p>“I <em>know,”</em> you choke out. “It’s just—”</p>
<p><em>Too close. Too full. Too warm, too sweet, too safe and right. It’s him. It’s him. It’s him—</em> </p>
<p>“It’s a little unfair of you to save our asses twice.”</p>
<p>He grins. Really, truly, fully smiles, and brushes the tear streaks away with his right hand.</p>
<p>“I’ll make it up to you later,” he promises lowly. “When we’re not in the middle of the hangar.”</p>
<p>You kiss his cheek, his jaw, his lips once more. <em>It really is something,</em> you ponder,<em> to feel someone’s smile right against yours. </em></p>
<p>“Let’s go home, Luke.”</p>
<p>And you leave in silence, hand in hand, to a place where the lights are gentler.</p>
<p>//</p>
<p>
  <em>aviārium (neut.): of or pertaining to birds</em>
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